I come from that area in Germany where the "cleanest" high German is spoken. Yet, I most certainly have an accent when speaking other languages (my English accent is a weird mix of German und MidWestern US).
It quite honestly never occurred to me that any of my characters might have an accent. Maybe they do. But I don't put that down in writing because I find it exhausting a reader. 🤷♀️
@anderlandbooks I grew up hearing from my grandmother that she found "high German" difficult to understand; in her mind it was the language of politicians and not the common folk she'd grown up around.
Years later, I learned that "high" and "low" were terms related to geography and not social class. So what my Bavarian-born grandmother likely spoke was high German, and as for the people she couldn't understand? Well, I don't understand a lot of what comes out of politicians'' mouths today. 🙂
@KurtHohmann@anderlandbooks
High German is what you learn at school. And I think the clearest pronunciation is in Lower Saxony, where people speak with almost no accent.
In Bavaria, there are many different accents (Bavarian, Franconian, Upper Palatinate, etc.), some of which are very different from each other.
The federal state of Baden-Württemberg had an image campaign with the slogan: "We can do everything. Except high German". 😆
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